Articoli di riviste sul tema "Heideggerian methodology"

PurposeThis current paper attempts to bring more light to the current debate of understanding phenomenological research methods, in order to clarify the interpretive phenomenological inquiry with Heidegger's philosophy of phenomenology.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uniquely presents the three distinctions of Heideggerian thoughts in conducting interpretive phenomenological research: (1) realizing the problem of identity; (2) recognizing the inadequacy of ontology; and (3) interpreting the subject matter through historical critiques.FindingsThe paper also discusses the basis of phenomenological research issues of a priori knowledge, data analysis process and qualitative research issues of validity, reliability, and creditability. In the conclusion and recommendation, this paper suggests six key points to implement a proper research strategy to employ Heideggerian phenomenological inquiry in social science and policymaking research where investigators are dealing with the multiplicity of existing and alternative worldviews.Originality/valueThe paper idea is fresh and adds new knowledge to the field.

PurposeIn this paper, patient information is approached from a Heideggerian perspective with the intention to gather an understanding about the personal nature of the information. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the ownership of patient information and then present Datenherrschaft (German for “mastery over information”) as a suitable model for patient ownership of patient information.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is theoretical in approach. It is based on arguments derived from Heidegger’s work in the Being and Time.FindingsBased on this Heideggerian approcah, a proposal for using the special definition of ownership of patient information – Datenherrschaft – given to a patient is suggested. From a Heideggerian perspective, it can be stated that the patient has the strongest rights towards patient information because this information is crucial for a patient to have an understanding about their Dasein (being-in-the-world).Research limitations/implicationsDatenherrschaft is used as an example of an ethically justified way of regulating the patient information ownership and should be analysed further. Especially the practical implications of implementing Datenherrschaft need more research.Originality/valuePatient information ownership is an issue that is neither unambiguously solved in many countries, nor has it, in our view, been ethically justified. The potential solution – Datenherrschaft – presented in this paper is clear and has strong philosophical justifications.

PurposeTheoretical innovation has been central to the study of red tape in (public sector) organizations. However, fundamental red tape concepts have failed to capture fully the lived experience of dysfunctional rules. This study addresses this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe study provides a critical review of existing red tape theory, highlighting its strengths but, more importantly, its limitations for analyzing red tape from an experiential perspective. To develop an experiential approach, the author draws on philosopher Martin Heidegger’s analysis of (dysfunctional) equipment, leveraging his insights to provide a cognitive account of established red tape concepts including functional efficacy, compliance burden, goal displacement and the bureaucratic personality.FindingsThe analysis suggests that, from an experiential perspective, impersonal organizational goals are unlikely to serve as the criteria by which evaluations of rule quality are made. Rather, a limited horizon of practical objectives, grounded in the individual work context, provides a more realistic standard. The practical implications of this insight for research in several areas are discussed.Originality/valueBy drawing on a literature largely overlooked by public administration scholars, this study contributes to the theory of red tape and organizational rules by providing a novel perspective that is not entirely discontinuous with existing work.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore insights based on the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, on the dynamic relationships between human experience and work roles. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the findings of a hermeneutic phenomenological study of nurse mentors, the topics of new roles and role challenges are explored, along with a consideration of their relevance to wider issues of workforce redesign. Heidegger’s philosophy of Dasein, in particular his concepts of inauthentic and authentic self, provided an interpretational lens. This paper applies these philosophical concepts to challenges associated with a changing workforce. Findings – Concepts elaborating human existence as proposed by Heidegger may offer analytic structures for understanding shifts in the lived experience of a changing workplace. In particular, the concepts could help managers to explore the implications of introducing novel work roles or extending roles. The understanding gained can also extend to situations where work practices may need to be challenged. Originality/value – As work roles and skill mix undergo rapid shifts, this paper offers an original way of understanding the experience of work roles.

In this article, on the basis of the philosophical method of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), an attempt is made to show how the distance separating the world of philosophy from the world of high technology can be overcome. The purpose of the study is to extrapolate Heidegger’s way of thinking onto the modern processes of technologization and digitalization as well as to demonstrate how Heideggerian philosophy can be used in practice today. Thus, we need to take a step back and reconsider Heidegger’s attempts to develop a new way of questioning and thinking. This article is relevant due to the increasing technologization and digitalization of all spheres of human life, including education, culture and philosophy. To identify the weaknesses and shortcomings of the concept of digitalization, it is contrasted with the Heideggerian critique of technological thinking in general and its digital component in particular. The paper demonstrates the way to bridge the gap between technology and the true being of humans. Further, the article considers the evolution of Heidegger’s analysis and attitude to technology during the development of his philosophical thought: from analysing Dasein (human existence as being) in the early period to shifting the focus to language, poetry and language of poets in the later period. In Heidegger’s philosophy, such poetry is the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843). The concept of Machenschaft (machination) as a justification of the manufacturability of the processes of human life is considered. The main signs of machination are presented: transformation of the social sphere into a huge mechanism – “machine” – controlled by technology; digitalization as an equalization of individuals; recognition of the omnipotence of technologies implemented as “programmes of action”. In the era of machination, a person cannot yet recognize himself as a machine and considers himself a living being with his own experiences. It is concluded that philosophy should take on a leading role in determining and critically evaluating the new human worldview on a global scale.

Purpose – This paper aims to evaluate the contribution of Christiansen attempting to reintegrate ethics into the process of design. Design/methodology/approach – It situates her attempt in the context of the history of the participatory design movement, and the way ethical concern has been jettisoned leaving only a pragmatic toolbox of techniques. Findings – Christiansen is successful in finding ethical encounter residing of necessity at the heart of design. Design imposes a vision or narrative on the world and participatory design makes that narrative negotiable. Practical implications – All design is of necessity ethical endeavor, and Christiansen helps us to understand why. Originality/value – This response situates Christiansen's approach within the Heideggerian understanding of the “ready to hand” assumptions that lie in the ways we approach objects in our world. This language may help provide a structured way to talk about the encounter.

This article aims to analyze the relationship between human beings and artificial intelligence through the movie “Marjorie Prime,” released in 2017 during Sundance Film Festival. Martin Heidegger's thoughts on Dasein and human nature and derived studies from Alan Turing's perspective on Artificial Intelligence and Humanity, as well as perspectives on posthumanism and transhumanism and their social implications, will be contrasted in order to discuss alterity and its presence in artificial intelligence. Hence, in this article we ask how it is possible to understand the alterity found between Marjorie, the protagonist of the film, and a holographic artificial intelligence created with the purpose of replacing her deceased husband, Walter. This study will begin with assumptions about the question of technology in the Heideggerian conception of Dasein and Being, as well as the view of technology as a current mode of being in postmodernity. Our methodology combines a bibliographical review and also an analysis of the audiovisual content previously quoted.

The transformational role education plays in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities has not been fully examined. The purpose of this study was to explore and investigate the meanings people with intellectual disabilities construct of their experiences in post-secondary and higher education. Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology was the qualitative methodology adopted for the study. Individual interviews were conducted with 27 people with intellectual disabilities and analysed in stages. These stages included the creation of I-Poems offering a unique opportunity for individual participant voices to be heard. Three core themes emerged to describe living an authentic life: learning (with the emphasis on increased skills, independence and opportunities); relationships (in particular, the importance of friendships), and perceptions including the existing realities of life for those with intellectual disabilities. The findings advance previous work highlighting the link between living a more authentic life and how education transforms how people with intellectual disabilities view themselves.

Interpretive phenomenology presents a unique methodology for inquiring into lived experience, yet few scholarly articles provide methodological guidelines for researchers, and many studies lack coherence with the methodology’s philosophical foundations. This article contributes to filling these gaps in qualitative research by examining the following question: What are the key methodological and philosophical considerations of leading an interpretive phenomenological study? An exploration of interpretive phenomenology’s foundations, including Heideggerian philosophy and Benner’s applications in health care, will show how the philosophical tradition can guide research methodology. The interpretive phenomenological concepts of Dasein, lived experience, existentialia, authenticity are at the core of the discussion while relevant methodological concerns include research paradigm, researcher’s stance, objective and research question, sampling and recruitment, data collection, and data analysis. A study of pediatric intensive care unit nurses’ lived experience of a major hospital transformation project will illustrate these research considerations. This methodological article is innovative in that it explicitly describes the ties between the operational elements of an interpretive phenomenological study and the philosophical tradition. This endeavor is particularly warranted, as the essence of phenomenology is to bring to light what is taken for granted, and yet phenomenological research paradoxically makes frequent assumptions concerning the philosophical underpinnings.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect a critical perspective drawing from phenomenology, especially informed by a reading of Heidegger, to enhance and extend appreciation of the need to question accounting’s meaning or delineation and how research might be undertaken into the accounting phenomenon and related areas. Design/methodology/approach To illustrate and clarify argumentation in terms of accounting mobilization and the domain of accounting research, the mainstream and strongly positivistic accounting perspective adopted in the USA is critically assessed. At the same time, the authors elaborate how much of interpretive research (including much of that labeled critical) is also lacking in terms of the perspective articulated here. Findings The paper stresses the case for questioning the taken-for-granted and conventional. It promotes reflexivity, cautious pragmatism, attentiveness to the value of the existing, responsibility to difference and otherness and openness to new possibilities as part of a deeper critical orientation. Originality/value The paper draws from phenomenology, especially in Heideggerian terms to open-up new conversational domain to debate accounting.

The research proposed an investigation on how the comprehension of suicide is shown by narratives of blogs from the city of Garanhuns and its region. Blogs with news about this type of death were cartographed, taking the clinical cartography as a path that looks for to aim the cartographer's experience as the main way of comprehending the actors and scenery that had come to meet. The Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology appeared as a possible lumen for the approach related to the phenomena that were revealed. In this direction, five (5) news were selected. Four (4) are regarding to the year of 2017, and one (1) to the year of 2018. It was used the "Analítica do Sentido", from Dulce Critelli, as a method to bring the phenomena to light, as well as the comprehensive analysis, as a means to comprehend them, in a way that the methodology was taken as a path that does not look for unique truths, as conceives it as an unveilment. It was perceived through the investigation: criminalization of suicide; body exposure; spectacularization of death in contemporaneity; victimization; the look that patologizes the phenomenon and the impersonality of anouncing "another" suicide.

Purpose – Ontology in information studies consists of antinomic conceptions, methodologies, and emphases in both application and philosophizing. A comprehensive understanding of ontology in information studies can be achieved by employing Slavoj Žižek's parallax view which holds that reality is not only best understood by articulating conflicting perspectives on a particular phenomenon, but that given phenomena are fundamentally constrained by incommensurable perspectives that must be acknowledged accordingly. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Ontology in information studies, including computational ontology development, is analyzed using critical information theory based on Heideggerian, poststructuralist, and anti-postmodern philosophy. The discussion is framed by Žižek's notion of the parallax Real. Findings – A complete understanding of ontology in information studies that does not reduce ontology to a totalizing theory or sequester notions of ontology to conflicting, unrelated discourses, necessarily accepts articulating the alterity between differing ontological views as the means by which one can best allude to what “ontology in information studies really is.” Originality/value – This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of radically different ontological perspectives on the nature of reality with respect to digital technology.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between individual practitioners’ personal values and their developing professional agentic values. It considers how the former might be in tension with the prescribed forms of practice held to be “professional” by professional bodies, warranting membership, and indeed, any licence to practice. Design/methodology/approach – The paper seeks an understanding of the different personal and collective ontological stances and tensions that practitioners may experience as they progress through their careers, attempting to align their own values with those of the collective values within their profession. It is a conceptual paper. Findings – The authors explore the ideas through a Heideggerian reading of transdisciplinarity which the authors find helpful. Research limitations/implications – This is a conceptual paper and my therefore may suffers from lack of empirical evidence which the authors would consider helpful as the next stage of development Practical implications – Through the lens of an “I” and “we” framework introduced in the paper and the use of a professional doctorate, the authors discuss how a practitioner and profession’s values may be in tension. Social implications – There may be issues of professional engagement which will impact on the development of the professions themselves. Originality/value – The authors believe this to be an original approach to understanding professional and personal values in professional doctorates

Nikolas Kompridis' Critique and Disclosure is a sustained argument for the proposition that critical social theory in the tradition of the Frankfurt School is best carried forward by rejecting central aspects of Habermas' neo-Kantian version of it. The most promising future direction for critical theory according to Kompridis involves a reconsideration of the resources of hermeneutic phenomenology, especially renewed attention to the Heideggerian concept ‘disclosure’. To this end, Kompridis develops a distinctive dialectical version of this concept. I agree that Kantian versions of critical theory are philosophically suspect, and that critical theory is most conceptually vital and politically trenchant when turned away from ‘discourse ethics' and the like. I am a bit less sanguine than is Kompridis with a turn to Heidegger, however, and raise several issues having to do with that aspect of Kompridis' account. This caution is not rooted simply in the historical fact that critical theory from its inception has attempted to immunize itself against phenomenology; it is rather a conceptual matter. In my judgment, Kompridis does not need to develop, as he does, an intricate account of overlap between what he holds best about critical theory and Heidegger’s ontology. If one were looking for historical antecedents that do not come freighted with what Horkheimer derided as ‘irrationalism’, one would do better to investigate early German Romanticism, in which there is an explicitly interpretive yet dialectical methodology on offer. Moreover, the central doctrines of Jena Romanticism exhibit more positive points of contact with the earlier, more skeptical forms of critical theory that Kompridis might favor, e.g. Adorno’s.

Background: Nurse lecturers play a vital role in producing professional and competent nurses through teaching and practicing in universities. It is challenging for clinical nurse experts to adapt to being nurse lecturers in the university for local development. Exploring this transitional experience is essential to learn how nurses adapt themselves to their new roles.Purpose: This study aimed to describe the transitional experiences from clinical nurse experts to novice nurse lecturers in the context of the university for local development.Methods: The Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology was used as a research methodology. The purposive sampling was utilized to select eight novice nurse lecturers as participants. Data were ethically collected using in-depth interviews, observations, field records, and voice recordings. The collected data were then transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis based on van Manen’s method was applied for data analysis.Results: The findings showed five major themes and four sub-themes, including: (1) Reasons for becoming a nurse lecturer in the university for local development, consisting of having a successful career and desiring to serve the community in their hometown; (2) Learning to work by relying on themselves; (3) Learning and teaching through an offered service for local development; (4) Seeking support, consisting of focusing on students as moral support and asking for recommendations from colleagues; and (5) Confidently moving forward.Conclusion: Understanding transitional experience from clinical nurse experts to novice nurse lecturers in the university for local development is very challenging, especially in managing difficulties in the role transition. It is expected that nursing schools provide an effective orientation and mentorship programs to help nurse lecturers promote their role transition efficiently.

Purpose This paper aims to trace the tectonic effects of openings as Heideggerian “built-things”. Design/methodology/approach This study has been organized in two phases. The first phase attempts to set up the theoretical framework through exploring the links between Heidegger’s notion of “built-thing” and contemporary tectonic discourses on dialectics between the values of matheme (construction, technology) and poetics (representation, meaning) to identify the key indicators in tectonic effects of openings. Accordingly, as the term “tectonic effects” is concerned with feelings and emotions that tectonics may evoke in people, the author searches for the indicators based on the poetic aspects of tectonic values and applies them within the phenomenological method implemented in the second phase of the research to explore the indicators in the designated case of the “Çavuşoğlu house”. Findings The results of this study indicate the significance of ontological nexus between tectonics as “poetic revealing” and the ability of the “built-thing” to generate tectonic effects within the embodied experience of dwellers. In fact, an opening can generate ontological tectonic effects in space only if it is brought about through a truthful build-dwell process which responds in a poetic way to the daily-life needs of the dwellers. The tangible examples of this fact are evident in the openings of the Çavuşoğlu house. Originality/value The theory of tectonics of openings as a separate “built-thing”, which is put forward in the present study, is a subject that has not been sufficiently studied so far and has the potential to be developed through further research. In light of this, the theoretical results of this study can contribute to tectonic thinking during the design process.

Resumo: O presente artigo pretende responder à questão: de que forma as telas se interpõem entre o sujeito e a realidade, no contexto das Novas Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação, em particular no caso das telas da televisão (no formato do Reality Show) e das telas de computador (na profusão das Redes Sociais)? Utilizando a metodologia interpretativista, é nosso objetivo tomar como ponto de partida a etimologia de técnica e tecnologia para estabelecer o caráter tecnológico do relacionamento do homem com a realidade. Demonstrada essa premissa, convocaremos os conceitos heideggerianos (dasein e ge-stell) para interpretar o modo como a tecnologia da tela responde a uma necessidade social de felicidade, que provém das mídias num mundo que se re-descobre icônico. Cada um de nós é convocado, na vida do dia a dia, para um importante encontro, especial e urgente, com a representação do seu próprio eu face a uma tela, a qual será o seu próprio espaço de felicidade. Pretendemos aferir se, hoje, são hipervalorizadas as ideologias que traduzem a realidade em concepções binárias do mundo, projetando o dasein na demanda pela unidade (1), opondo-o ao insucesso (0), de cada vez que se usa uma tela mais como um espelho ou uma janela, esquecendo a sua função de ge-stell e fazendo disso a promoção, não da forma de descoberta do dasein, mas, em vez disso, da abertura para o próprio lugar dos simulacros.Palavras-chave: novas mídias; tecnologia; telas, público/privado. Abstract: This article seeks to answer the question: how the screens are interposed between the subject and reality, in contexts of the New Technologies of Information and Communication, particularly in the case of television screens (in the reality show format) and computer screens (by the profusion of social networks)? Using the interpretative methodology, our goal is to take as a starting point the etymology of technic and technology to establish the technological nature of man’s relationship with reality. Once this premise is demonstrated, we will convene the Heideggerian concepts (dasein and ge-stell) to interpret how the technology of the screen meets a social need for happiness that comes from the media in a world that re-discovers itself as iconic. Each of us is called upon, in our day-to-day life, to an important, special and urgent meeting with the representation of our own selves, against a screen, where will be its own place of happiness. We intend to assess whether ideologies are hiper-evaluated today, especially when translating reality into binary conceptions of the world, projecting dasein on the demand for unity (1), opposing it to failure (0), each time using the screen more like a mirror or a window, and forgetting its function as a ge-stell by making it a promotion, and not doing it as a way to discover dasein, but, instead, as the opening of the simulacra itself.Keywords: new media; tecnhology; screen; public/private.

Purpose This paper aims to explore how unreflective and reflective value experience emerges in value co-creation and co-destruction practices in a consumer context. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a Heideggerian phenomenological heuristic consisting of three interrelated modes of engagement, which is used for interpretive sense-making in a dynamic and lively case context of amateur-level football (soccer) played on artificial grass. Based on a qualitative study using ethnographic techniques, this study examines the whats and the hows of value experience by individuals playing football at different qualities and in varying conditions across 25 Dutch football teams. Findings The findings reveal three interrelated yet distinct modalities of experience in value co-creation and co-destruction presented in a continuum of triplex spaces of unreflective and reflective value experience. The first is a joyful flow of unreflective value experience in emergent and undisrupted value co-creation practice with no potential for value co-destruction. Second, a semireflective value experience caused by interruptions in value co-creation has a higher potential for value co-destruction. Third, a fully reflective value experience through a completely interrupted value co-creation practice results in high-value co-destruction. Research limitations/implications This research contributes to the literature on the microfoundations of value experience and value creation by proposing a conceptual relationship between unreflective/reflective value experience and value co-creation and co-destruction mediated through interruptions in consumer usage situations. Practical implications This study’s novel perspective on this relationship offers practitioners a useful vantage point on understanding how enhanced value experience comes about in value co-creation practice and how this is linked to value co-destruction when interruptions occur. These insights help bolster alignment and prevent misalignment in resource integration and foster service strategies, designs and innovations to better influence consumer experience in journeys. Originality/value This study deploys an integral view of how consumer value experience manifests in value co-creation and co-destruction that offers conceptual, methodological and practical clarity.

De acuerdo con una influyente interpretación, ejemplificada por von Herrmann (2000), la postura que se asuma con respecto a la metodología reflexiva marca el contraste entre una vertiente reflexiva y una vertiente hermenéutica de la investigación fenomenológica. Recientemente, autores como Zahavi (2003a, 2005), Crowell (2001) y Cai (2011) han cuestionado la legitimidad de establecer dicho contraste a partir del método de la reflexión. Mi propósito es discutir la crítica central que Heidegger, basándose en Paul Natorp, dirige a la reflexión fenomenológica (GA 56/57, 100). Luego de presentar tres posibles interpretaciones de la crítica de Heidegger, y de sugerir la pertinencia de una de ellas, argumento que para contrarrestar dicha crítica es necesario ir más allá de la defensa de la metodología reflexiva que Husserl esboza en el § 79 de Ideas I, y apelar a una distinción entre una objetualidad cósica y una objetualidad temática, sugerida en textos husserlianos posteriores.According to an influential interpretation, epitomized by von Herrmann (2000), the stance that one takes on the reflective methodology determines a contrast between a reflective and a hermeneutic understanding of the phenomenological investigation. In recent years, authors like Zahavi (2003a, 2005), Crowell (2001), and Cai (2011) have challenged the validity of this interpretation. My aim in this article is to discuss the critique that Heidegger, drawing on ideas from Paul Natorp, addresses to phenomenological reflection (GA 56/57, 100). I first present three possible interpreta-tions of Heidegger’s critique, and suggest the superiority of one of them. Secondly, I argue that in order to respond to that critique one must go beyond the defense of reflection indicated by Husserl in § 79 of Ideas I, and appeal to a distinction between thing-objecthood and thematic objecthood, suggested in some of Husserl’s later writings.

ABSTRACTObjective: understanding the therapeutical day-by-day experiences of the HIV/AIDS teenager. This research scenario will be the pediatric and adult ambulatorial services in an Universitary Hospital in Brazil. Methodolgy: a qualitative study with a phenomenological approach using Martin Heidegger´s theorical and methodological references. In this research, the participants are teenagers with HIV/AIDS who attend to the above mentioned service and are aware of their diagnosis. A phenomenological interview will be carried out with the participants, with an orienting question. For the statements analysis the heideggerian method will be used, which is composed of two moments: the first one is the comprehensive analysis named vague and median and the second one is the hermeneutical interpretative analysis. Expected results: we foresee the approach between the teenagers and the nursing crew, aiming the construction of knowledge and contributing in daily practice and interventions, which were mediated by actions of caring, centered in health promotion and education for the development of self-caring. Descriptors: acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; human immunodeficiency vírus; teenagers; adolescent health; nursing; pediatric nursing; existentialism. RESUMOObjetivo: compreender a vivência do cotidiano terapêutico do adolescente que tem HIV/AIDS. O cenário da pesquisa será no serviço de ambulatório pediátrico e adulto de um Hospital de Ensino, no Brasil. Metodologia: estudo qualitativo com abordagem fenomenológica com a utilização do referencial teórico e metodológico de Martin Heidegger. Os participantes da pesquisa serão adolescentes que têm HIV/AIDS, que realizam acompanhamento no referido serviço e que sabem do seu diagnóstico. Será realizada entrevista fenomenológica, com a realização de uma pergunta orientadora. Para análise dos depoimentos será utilizado o método heideggeriano, o qual possui dois momentos metódicos: o primeiro é a análise compreensiva denominada vaga e mediana e o segundo momento análise interpretativa hermenêutica. Resultados esperados: vislumbra-se a aproximação do adolescente que tem HIV/AIDS e a enfermagem, com vistas a produção do conhecimento e contribuições nas práticas de intervenção. Essas mediadas por ações de cuidado, centradas na promoção e na educação em saúde para o desenvolvimento do cuidado de si. Descritores: síndrome da imunodeficiência adquirida; vírus da imunodeficiência humana; adolescente; saúde do adolescente; enfermagem; enfermagem pediátrica; existencialismo. RESUMENObjetivo: comprender la vivencia del cotidiano terapéutico del adolescente que tiene VIH/SIDA. El escenario de la investigación será en el servicio de ambulatorio pediátrico y adulto de un Hospital de Enseñanza, en Brasil. Metodologia: estudio cualitativo con abordaje fenomenológico con la utilización del referencial teórico y metodológico de Martin Heidegger. Los participantes de la investigación serán adolescentes que tienen VIH/SIDA, que realizan acompañamiento en el referido servicio y que saben de su diagnóstico. Será realizada entrevista fenomenológica, con la realización de una pregunta orientadora. Para el análisis de las declaraciones será utilizado el método heideggeriano, lo cual posee dos momentos metódicos: el primer momento es el análisis comprensivo denominado vago y mediano y el segundo, el análisis interpretativo hermenéutico. Resultados esperados: se vislumbra el acercamiento del adolescente que tiene VIH/SIDA y la enfermería, con vistas a producción del conocimiento y contribuciones en las prácticas de intervención. Ésas mediadas por acciones de cuidado, centradas en la promoción y en la educación en salud para el desarrollo del cuidado de sí. Descriptores: síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida; virus de inmunodeficiencia humana; adolescente; salud del adolescente; enfermería; enfermería pediátrica; existencialismo.

To dwell and to build is not an art, is not a technique, but a realm where things belong. This is a statement addressed by Heidegger in Bauen Wohnen Denken, his text more connected with architecture that is more contemporary than ever. In effect, two questions as What is it to dwell? and How does building belong to dwelling? are intertwined with others like How to dwell in the current world? and How to give form to the quality of dwelling? The responses should point out again to Heideggerian’s line of thought: ‘Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build’. He pushes the argument to the limit adding that dwelling is to conciliate ‘earth’, ‘heaven’, ‘the mortals’ and ‘the gods’ (the divine). To dwell and to build should be the preservation of such square. It is remarkable that Heidegger’s writings on this topic, that stimulated and still stimulate the architectural debate, were strongly influenced by the philosopher’s life in the Schwarzwald, close to the village of Todtnauberg. In Heidegger’s Hut (Adam Scharr) the hut in which Heidegger lived in for five decades, since he ordered its construction in 1922, is described, as well as the bonds he created with the landscape and all environment. The hut was a place for him to dwell and to think, because both belong together and were mutually influencing body, feelings and sense of place. And if Norberg-Shulz left the phenomenological legacy of the genius loci as the spirit of the place, with its particular atmosphere and fundamental implications for building, genius loci within Heidegger’s thoughts on building, dwelling and thinking recall the sense of protection and of sacredness of a place like the one called home. Life in balance with the spirit of the place showed Heidegger that the emotional space is measured very differently from space measured mathematically. And to build and to dwell are activities with a significant order that resonates in mind, body and spirit. For phenomenology, place is not just the geographic or topographic location, but consists of effective elements such as materials, form, texture, colour, light, shadow playing together. The interdependence of all those elements, along with others allows the opportunity for some spaces, with identical functions, to express diverse architectural features and therefore countlessatmospheres to perceive, enjoy and cherish. ‘Sometimes I can almost feel a particular door handle in my hand, a piece of metal shaped like the back of a spoon. I used to take hold of it when I went into my aunt’s garden. That door handle still seems to me like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells. I remember the sound of the gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of the waxed oak staircase, I can hear the heavy front door closing behind me as I walk along the dark corridor and enter the kitchen, the only really brightly lit room in the house’, confesses Peter Zumthor. On the shoulders of these inspiring ideas and experiences, the plot for the 5th number of Sophia was designed. It called original articles that discuss the core of interiority in architecture as a matter open to diverse ideas and practices in the realm of built space to be experienced by its dwellers. Interiority to be argued as a dimension that differentiates a place of a non-place. The non-places are spots with which the individual does not create any relation; they are transit- places without memory, identity, history, personal construction, references, emotions of which solace is not a minor one. Interiority claims that kind of space that accommodates thoughts, dreams, nightmares, intimacy, changes, silence, noise, neurosis...life. Shelter, shape, place, atmosphere portray scenarios that enhance experiences, events, occurrences beyond the functionalistic rhetoric enveloping them. All the texts that compose this issue display the strong insights the authors chose to approach the proposed topic. They trigger new thoughts and new questions. Three articles and an interview appear as the hard core of this volume. Preserving heritage through new narratives: designing a guesthouse within a cross-disciplinary team from Pedro Bandeira Maia and Raul Pinto discusses a very demanding design program of transformation of an interior space from a former pharmacy to a guest house in a historical building from the nineteenth century. The article exposes the methodology followed by a cross disciplinary team debating the project’s narrative illustrated with very expressive images. The role of architecture in an engaging and meaningful experience of the physical exhibition from Bárbara Coutinho and Ana Tostões evolves from the main argument that the physical exhibition is the immediate way to encounter the arts in line with the phenomenological understanding of the aesthetic experience. It recalls the inspiring role of exhibition designs of Frederick Kiesler, Franco Albini and Lina Bo Bardi as examples to contrast with the growing process of digitalisation and dematerialisation of the involvement with art. Authors address then the reasons why for contemporary times it is important that an exhibition is designed to be a physical matter between spectators and art. The need for Shelter. Laugier, Ledoux, and Enlightenment’s shadows from Rui Aristides and José António Bandeirinha discourses about the human need for shelter as the essence that defines the discipline of architecture. This approach is developed within an historical framework, namely referring the legacy of Laugier and Ledoux intertwined with philosophical and political issues.Based upon these reasoning, the authors go further and tackle the architecture’s role regarding shelter in contemporary times. The interview The Power of Imagination made to Danish Designer Hans Thyge is an exciting journey to pertinent themes thought from the professional practice of a designer who after 30 years in design still believes in the use of a pencil and a paper to sketch and to imagine. ‘Interiors’ is central in this storytelling as a challenge to create spatial experiences and staging atmospheres. Also his own house, designed by him, is a key moment to make special considerations regarding dwelling and building. We are very thankful for authors’ contributions and vivid minds.

Photograph by Gonzalo Echeverria (2010)“I must plunge again and again in the water of doubt” (Wittgenstein 1e). The Holy Grail in the phenomenology of religion (and, to a lesser extent, the sociology of religion) is a definition of religion that actually works, but, so far, this seems to have been elusive. Classical definitions of religion—substantive (e.g. Tylor) and functionalist (e.g. Durkheim)—fail, in part because they attempt to be in three places at once, as it were: they attempt to distinguish religion from non-religion; they attempt to capture what religions have in common; and they attempt to grasp the “heart”, or “core”, of religion. Consequently, family resemblance definitions of religion replace certainty and precision for its own sake with a more pragmatic and heuristic approach, embracing doubt and putting forward definitions that give us a better understanding (Verstehen) of religion. In this paper, I summarise some “new” definitions of religion that take this approach, before proposing and defending another one, defining religion as non-propositional and “apophatic”, thus accepting that doubt is central to religion itself, as well as to the analysis of religion.The question of how to define religion has had real significance in a number of court cases round the world, and therefore it does have an impact on people’s lives. In Germany, for example, the courts ruled that Scientology was not a religion, but a business, much to the displeasure of the Church of Scientology (Aldridge 15). In the United States, some advocates of Transcendental Meditation (TM) argued that TM was not a religion and could therefore be taught in public schools without violating the establishment clause in the constitution—the separation of church and state. The courts in New Jersey, and federal courts, ruled against them. They ruled that TM was a religion (Barker 146). There are other cases that I could cite, but the point of this is simply to establish that the question has a practical importance, so we should move on.In the classical sociology of religion, there are a number of definitions of religion that are quite well known. Edward Tylor (424) defined religion as a belief in spiritual beings. This definition does not meet with widespread acceptance, the notable exception being Melford Spiro, who proposed in 1966 that religion was “an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated super-human beings” (Spiro 96, see also 91ff), and who has bravely stuck to that definition ever since. The major problem is that this definition excludes Buddhism, which most people do regard as a religion, although some people try to get round the problem by claiming that Buddhism is not really a religion, but more of a philosophy. But this is cheating, really, because a definition of religion must be descriptive as well as prescriptive; that is, it must apply to entities that are commonly recognised as religions. Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, proposed that religion had two key characteristics, a separation of the sacred from the profane, and a gathering together of people in some sort of institution or community, such as a church (Durkheim 38, 44). However, religions often reject a separation of the sacred from the profane. Most Muslims and many Calvinist Christians, for example, would insist strongly that everything—including the ostensibly profane—is equally subject to the sovereignty of God. Also, some religions are more oriented to a guru-pupil kind of relationship, rather than a church community.Weber tried to argue that religion should only be defined at the end of a long process of historical and empirical study. He is often criticised for this, although there probably is some wisdom in his argument. However, there seems to be an implicit definition of religion as theodicy, accounting for the existence of evil and the existence of suffering. But is this really the central concern of all religions?Clarke and Byrne, in their book Religion Defined and Explained, construct a typology of definitions, which I think is quite helpful. Broadly speaking, there are two types of classical definition. Firstly, there are substantive definitions (6), such as Tylor’s and Spiro’s, which posit some sort of common “property” that religions “have”—“inside” them, as it were. Secondly, functionalist definitions (Clarke and Byrne 7), such as Durkheim’s, define religion primarily in terms of its social function. What matters, as far as a definition of religion is concerned, is not what you believe, but why you believe it.However, these classical definitions do not really work. I think this is because they try to do too many things. For a strict definition of religion to work, it needs to tell us (i) what religions have in common, (ii) what distinguishes religion on the one hand from non-religion, or everything that is not religion, on the other, and (iii) it needs to tell us something important about religion, what is at the core of religion. This means that a definition of religion has to be in three places at once, so to speak. Furthermore, a definition of religion has to be based on extant religions, but it also needs to have some sort of quasi-predictive capacity, the sort of thing that can be used in a court case regarding, for example, Scientology or Transcendental Meditation.It may be possible to resolve the latter problem by a gradual process of adjustment, a sort of hermeneutic circle of basing a definition on extant religions and applying it to new ones. But what about the other problem, the one of being in three places at once?Another type identified by Clarke and Byrne, in their typology of definitions, is the “family resemblance” definition (11-16). This derives from the later Wittgenstein. The “family resemblance” definition of religion is based on the idea that religions commonly share a number of features, but that no one religion has all of them. For example, there are religious beliefs, doctrines and mythos—or stories and parables. There are rituals and moral codes, institutions and clergy, prayers, spiritual emotions and experiences, etc. This approach is of course less precise than older substantive and functional definitions, but it also avoids some of the problems associated with them.It does so by rethinking the point of defining religion. Instead of being precise and rigorous for the sake of it, it tries to tell us something, to be “productive”, to help us understand religion better. It eschews certainty and embraces doubt. Its insights could be applied to some schools of philosophy (e.g. Heideggerian) and practical spirituality, because it does not focus on what is distinctive about religion. Rather, it focuses on the core of religion, and, secondarily, on what religions have in common. The family resemblance approach has led to a number of “new” definitions (post-Durkheim definitions) being proposed, all of which define religion in a less rigorous, but, I hope, more imaginative and heuristic way.Let me provide a few examples, starting with two contrasting ones. Peter Berger in the late 1960s defined religion as “the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as humanly significant”(37), which implies a consciousness of an anthropocentric sacred cosmos. Later, Alain Touraine said that religion is “the apprehension of human destiny, existence, and death”(213–4), that is, an awareness of human limitations, including doubt. Berger emphasises the high place for human beings in religion, and even a sort of affected certainty, while Touraine emphasises our place as doubters on the periphery, but it seems that religion exists within a tension between these two opposites, and, in a sense, encompasses them both.Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church and arch-nemesis of the conservative Anglicans, such as those from Sydney, defines religion as like good poetry, not bad science. It is easy to understand that he is criticising those who see religion, particularly Christianity, as centrally opposed to Darwin and evolution. Holloway is clearly saying that those people have missed the point of their own faith. By “good poetry”, he is pointing to the significance of storytelling rather than dogma, and an open-ended discussion of ultimate questions that resists the temptation to end with “the moral of the story”. In science (at least before quantum physics), there is no room for doubt, but that is not the case with poetry.John Caputo, in a very energetic book called On Religion, proposes what is probably the boldest of the “new” definitions. He defines religion as “the love of God” (1). Note the contrast with Tylor and Spiro. Caputo does not say “belief in God”; he says “the love of God”. You might ask how you can love someone you don’t believe in, but, in a sense, this paradox is the whole point. When Caputo says “God”, he is not necessarily talking in the usual theistic or even theological terms. By “God”, he means the impossible made possible (10). So a religious person, for Caputo, is an “unhinged lover” (13) who loves the impossible made possible, and the opposite is a “loveless lout” who is only concerned with the latest stock market figures (2–3). In this sense of religious, a committed atheist can be religious and a devout Catholic or Muslim or Hindu can be utterly irreligious (2–3). Doubt can encompass faith and faith can encompass doubt. This is the impossible made possible. Caputo’s approach here has something in common with Nietzsche and especially Kierkegaard, to whom I shall return later.I would like to propose another definition of religion, within the spirit of these “new” definitions of religion that I have been discussing. Religion, at its core, I suggest, is non-propositional and apophatic. When I say that religion is non-propositional, I mean that religion will often enact certain rituals, or tell certain stories, or posit faith in someone, and that propositional statements of doctrine are merely reflections or approximations of this non-propositional core. Faith in God is not a proposition. The Eucharist is not a proposition. Prayer is not, at its core, a proposition. Pilgrimage is not a proposition. And it is these sorts of things that, I suggest, form the core of religion. Propositions are what happen when theologians and academics get their hands on religion, they try to intellectualise it so that it can be made to fit within their area of expertise—our area of expertise. But, that is not where it belongs. Propositions about rituals impose a certainty on them, whereas the ritual itself allows for courage in the face of doubt. The Maundy Thursday service in Western Christianity includes the stripping of the altar to the accompaniment of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me”), ending the service without a dismissal (Latin missa, the origin of the English “mass”) and with the church in darkness. Doubt, confusion, and bewilderment are the heart and soul of this ritual, not orthodox faith as defined propositionally.That said, religion does often involve believing, of some kind (though it is not usually as central as in Christianity). So I say that religion is non-propositional and apophatic. The word “apophatic”, though not the concept, has its roots in Greek Orthodox theology, where St Gregory Palamas argues that any statement about God—and particularly about God’s essence as opposed to God’s energies—must be paradoxical, emphasising God’s otherness, and apophatic, emphasising God’s essential incomprehensibility (Armstrong 393). To make an apophatic statement is to make a negative statement—instead of saying God is king, lord, father, or whatever, we say God is not. Even the most devout believer will recognise a sense in which God is not a king, or a lord, or a father. They will say that God is much greater than any of these things. The Muslim will say “Allahu Akhbar”, which means God is greater, greater than any human description. Even the statement “God exists” is seen to be well short of the mark. Even that is human language, which is why the Cappadocian fathers (Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Naziansus) said that they believed in God, while refusing to say that God exists.So to say that religion is at its core non-propositional is to say that religious beliefs are at their core apophatic. The idea of apophasis is that by a process of constant negation you are led into silence, into a recognition that there is nothing more that can be said. St Thomas Aquinas says that the more things we negate about God, the more we say “God is not…”, the closer we get to what God is (139). Doubt therefore brings us closer to the object of religion than any putative certainties.Apophasis does not only apply to Christianity. I have already indicated that it applies also to Islam, and the statement that God is greater. In Islam, God is said to have 99 names—or at least 99 that have been revealed to human beings. Many of these names are apophatic. Names like The Hidden carry an obviously negative meaning in English, while, etymologically, “the Holy” (al-quddu-s) means “beyond imperfection”, which is a negation of a negation. As-salaam, the All-Peaceful, means beyond disharmony, or disequilibrium, or strife, and, according to Murata and Chittick (65–6), “The Glorified” (as-subbuh) means beyond understanding.In non-theistic religions too, an apophatic way of believing can be found. Key Buddhist concepts include sunyata, emptiness, or the Void, and anatta, meaning no self, the belief or realisation that the Self is illusory. Ask what they believe in instead of the Self and you are likely to be told that you are missing the point, like the Zen pupil who confused the pointing finger with the moon. In the Zen koans, apophasis plays a major part. One well-known koan is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Any logical answers will be dismissed, like Thomas Aquinas’s statements about God, until the pupil gets beyond logic and achieves satori, or enlightenment. Probably the most used koan is Mu—Master Joshu is asked if a dog has Buddha-nature and replies Mu, meaning “no” or “nothing”. This is within the context of the principle that everything has Buddha-nature, so it is not logical. But this apophatic process can lead to enlightenment, something better than logic. By plunging again and again in the water of doubt, to use Wittgenstein’s words, we gain something better than certainty.So not only is apophasis present in a range of different religions—and I have given just a few examples—but it is also central to the development of religion in the Axial Age, Karl Jaspers’s term for the period from about 800-200 BCE when the main religious traditions of the world began—monotheism in Israel (which also developed into Christianity and Islam), Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Confucianism and Taoism in China, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. In the early Hindu traditions, there seems to have been a sort of ritualised debate called the Brahmodya, which would proceed through negation and end in silence. Not the silence of someone admitting defeat at the hands of the other, but the silence of recognising that the truth lay beyond them (Armstrong 24).In later Hinduism, apophatic thought is developed quite extensively. This culminates in the idea of Brahman, the One God who is Formless, beyond all form and all description. As such, all representations of Brahman are equally false and therefore all representations are equally true—hence the preponderance of gods and idols on the surface of Hinduism. There is also the development of the idea of Atman, the universal Self, and the Buddhist concept anatta, which I mentioned, is rendered anatman in Sanskrit, literally no Atman, no Self. But in advaita Hinduism there is the idea that Brahman and Atman are the same, or, more accurately, they are not two—hence advaita, meaning “not two”. This is negation, or apophasis. In some forms of present-day Hinduism, such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as the Hare Krishnas), advaita is rejected. Sometimes this is characterised as dualism with respect to Brahman and Atman, but it is really the negation of non-dualism, or an apophatic negation of the negation.Even in early Hinduism, there is a sort of Brahmodya recounted in the Rig Veda (Armstrong 24–5), the oldest extant religious scripture in the world that is still in use as a religious scripture. So here we are at the beginning of Axial Age religion, and we read this account of creation:Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal.Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.All that existed then was void and form less.Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent.Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.(Rig Veda Book 10, Hymn 129, abridged)And it would seem that this is the sort of thought that spread throughout the world as a result of the Axial Age and the later spread of Axial and post-Axial religions.I could provide examples from other religious traditions. Taoism probably has the best examples, though they are harder to relate to the traditions that are more familiar in the West. “The way that is spoken is not the Way” is the most anglicised translation of the opening of the Tao Te Ching. In Sikhism, God’s formlessness and essential unknowability mean that God can only be known “by the Guru’s grace”, to quote the opening hymn of the Guru Granth Sahib.Before I conclude, however, I would like to anticipate two criticisms. First, this may only be applicable to the religions of the Axial Age and their successors, beginning with Hinduism and Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and early Jewish monotheism, followed by Jainism, Christianity, Islam and so on. I would like to find examples of apophasis at the core of other traditions, including Indigenous Australian and Native American ones, for example, but that is work still to be done. Focusing on the Axial Age does historicise the argument, however, at least in contrast with a more universal concept of religion that runs the risk of falling into the ahistorical homo religiosus idea that humans are universally and even naturally religious. Second, this apophatic definition looks a bit elitist, defining religion in terms that are relevant to theologians and “religious virtuosi” (to use Weber’s term), but what about the ordinary believers, pew-fillers, temple-goers? In response to such criticism, one may reply that there is an apophatic strand in what Niebuhr called the religions of the disinherited. In Asia, devotion to the Buddha Amida is particularly popular among the poor, and this involves a transformation of the idea of anatta—no Self—into an external agency, a Buddha who is “without measure”, in terms of in-finite light and in-finite life. These are apophatic concepts. In the Christian New Testament, we are told that God “has chosen the foolish things of this world to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong…, the things that are not to shame the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27). The things that are not are the apophatic, and these are allied with the foolish and the weak, not the educated and the powerful.One major reason for emphasising the role of apophasis in religious thought is to break away from the idea that the core of religion is an ethical one. This is argued by a number of “liberal religious” thinkers in different religious traditions. I appreciate their reasons, and I am reluctant to ally myself with their opponents, who include the more fundamentalist types as well as some vocal critics of religion like Dawkins and Hitchens. However, I said that I would return to Kierkegaard, and the reason is this. Kierkegaard distinguishes between the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. Of course, religion has an aesthetic and an ethical dimension, and in some religions these dimensions are particularly important, but that does not make them central to religion as such. Kierkegaard regarded the religious sphere as radically different from the aesthetic or even the ethical, hence his treatment of the story of Abraham going to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son, in obedience to God’s command. His son was not killed in the end, but Abraham was ready to do the deed. This is not ethical. This is fundamentally and scandalously unethical. Yet it is religious, not because it is unethical and scandalous, but because it pushes us to the limits of our understanding, through the waters of doubt, and then beyond.Were I attempting to criticise religion, I would say it should not go there, that, to misquote Wittgenstein, the limits of my understanding are the limits of my world, whereof we cannot understand thereof we must remain silent. Were I attempting to defend religion, I would say that this is its genius, that it can push back the limits of understanding. I do not believe in value-neutral sociology, but, in this case, I am attempting neither. ReferencesAldridge, Alan. Religion in the Contemporary World. Cambridge: Polity, 2000.Aquinas, Thomas. “Summa of Christian Teaching”. An Aquinas Reader. ed. Mary Clarke. New York: Doubleday, 1972.Armstrong, Karen. The Great Transformation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.Barker, Eileen. New Religious Movements: a Practical Introduction. London: HMSO, 1989.Berger, Peter. The Social Reality of Religion. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.Caputo, John. On Religion. London: Routledge, 2001.Clarke, Peter, and Peter Byrne, eds. Religion Defined and Explained. New York: St Martin’s Press. 1993.Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Free Press, 1995.Holloway, Richard. Doubts and Loves. Edinburgh: Caqnongate, 2002.Jaspers, Karl. The Origin and Goal of History. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977.Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/Or. London: Penguin, 1992.———. Fear and Trembling. London: Penguin, 1986.Murata, Sachiko, and William Chittick. The Vision of Islam. St Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House, 1994.Niebuhr, H. Richard. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. New York: Holt, 1929.Spiro, Melford. “Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation.” Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. Ed. Michael Banton. London: Tavistock, 1966. 85–126.Touraine, Alain. The Post-Industrial Society. 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